Temporary Brain Changes Lead to Accelerated Learning 140
An anonymous reader writes "In an advance that could help the treatment of learning impairments, strokes, tinnitus and chronic pain, UT Dallas researchers have found that stimulating nerves in the brain accelerates learning in laboratory tests. When the juice was turned off, researchers monitoring brain activity in rats found that brain responses eventually returned to their pre-stimulation state — but the animals kept the ability to perform their newly learned tasks."
Tin foil hat (Score:5, Funny)
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This is the reason I never leave home without a balloon attached to my tin foil hat.
It conducts electricity better than hair?
Heh. (Score:1)
What could possibly go wrong with accellerating brain function in rats.
I for one welcome our new super intelligent rat overlords.
Re:Heh. (Score:5, Funny)
What could possibly go wrong with accellerating brain function in rats.
I for one welcome our new super intelligent rat overlords.
Don't worry, it may not have accelerated brain function. It was probably just the rats saying, "Holy F*CK! I better learn this trick so the guy in white coat can stop shocking the sh*t out of my skull!"
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Free Electrodes for Slashdotters! (Score:1)
Emphasis mine. The ability of joke perception among slashdotters is stunning. Tinfoil hats off!
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What could possibly go wrong with accellerating brain function in rats.
Nothing at all. They become famous [character-shop.com]
Re:Heh. (Score:5, Funny)
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Life would be much simpler if we all had to literally run through mazes and be punished or rewarded by soulless overlords, rather than just figuratively.
You obviously haven't seen the cubicle farm at my office.
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You'll have to ask my boss, that is normally what he does.
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Eureka! I think you've just discovered the ?????? step!
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Not a thing [wikipedia.org] Unless you happen to be a mouse named Mr. Frisby. It didn't work out so well for him.
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They are already here....
We call the Politicians
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I guess Brain was successful this time around.
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What could possibly go wrong with accellerating brain function in rats.
I for one welcome our new super intelligent rat overlords.
Don't worry. Rats are already the most intelligent species on Earth. Followed by dolphins, and then humans.
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Process (Score:3, Funny)
Normal existence:
1. Be presented with a new non compulsory task
2. Learn at your own leisure
Lab Existence:
1. Be presented with a new task
2. Have brain zapped repeatedly
3. Learn task faster to alleviate zapping
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Office Existence:
1. Be presented with new task
2. Have worker harassed repeatedly
3. Fill spreadsheet faster to alleviate harassing
One step closer to-- (Score:1)
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One step closer to "I know kung fu."
Sadly, still millions of steps to being in any sort of physical condition to use it.
Re:One step closer to-- (Score:5, Funny)
One step closer to "I know kung fu."
Sadly, still millions of steps to being in any sort of physical condition to use it.
"I know sumo?"
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I am not into k
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All journeys begin with a single step...
up in voltage...
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Something like this could be useful.. heh heh.
You've already got it. The temporary brain change is called "Oh crap, I've got an exam tomorrow! Right, where are the books?"
Neo says... (Score:2)
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Show me.
Kung Fu speedrun [youtube.com]
Flowers for Algernon (Score:3)
Sounds similiar to the "breakthrough procedure" performed in the classic Flowers for Algernon, when they made the main character a genius for a short amount of time.
Flowers for Algernon (Score:1)
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This is rather reminding me of the book, "Flowers for Algernon". It didn't end very well.
I would disagree. The alternative was a life of drudgery with enough intelligence to understant that it could be better, but not enough intelligence to attain it.
Give me the "breakthrough procedure" anytime.
Those who haven't read TFA... (Score:5, Interesting)
... seem to be missing the parts where it says that the (yes, electrical) stimulation is stimulating neurotransmitters; and that any actual pain-effect is being countered by anaesthesia.
And I'm amazed that, all these comments in, we get "I for one welcome our super-intelligent rat overlords" but haven't yet got a "where do I sign up?". Man, when we were back in undergrad before USB was invented(*), we all wanted RS232 sockets near the bases of our skulls.
(*): Yes. You can all get off my lawn.
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Surely you don't run "apps" as root, do you?
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a) You mean "multiple personality disorder", not schizophrenia. JFWI.
b) For your sake, I hope it is. Otherwise, the minute you start trying to chew gum, your heart and lungs are going to seize up.
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And there's a reason MS-DOS is hardly used even in electrical engineering labs anymore (although, when I was studying electrical engineering around '93 we DID have a CP/M machine).
You neglect to mention that TSRs (which were fun to code once you got the hang of interrupts) still ran in Real Mode, consumed precious Base Memory, left memory unprotected and were all DEPRECATED in FAVOUR of multitasking operating systems.
You go ahead and run your autonomic biological processes over DOS. I'll just leave a proces
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Reality check: there are more bodies than ME installations; the bodies keep going (or at least supporting the brain) in all but the most severe of crashes; the bodies have self-repair mechanisms.
I'd also like to think I can stay alive long enough to get on the Kurzweil boat.
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** You're = your
Re:bad spelling (Score:2)
Muphry's Law wins!
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Muphry's_law [wikimedia.org]
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a) Multi-user is a subset of multi-task.
b) Multi-task is a fake unless you have multiple cores or CPUs.
c) In humans especially, conscious multi-tasking is detrimental to overall performance. What would happen if your single-core single-user machine, analogising to a person, hangs on one of your tasks? Your heart and lungs seize up.
d) You mis-spell in the same post calling me a "tard".
Mods: please don't bother modding the parent down any further. Their life must be hell enough as it is, apparently.
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It seems like there is an aversion to this sort of thing in the west. In Japan you can buy various study aids including bottled oxygen, so I suspect that sooner or later they will start doing electro-stimulation devices too.
Well, okay, to be fair we use caffeine, but it does not seem to be marketed as a study aid.
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Evidently, you didn't realize that "Tonight on a very special episode of..." was your cue to change the channel. :-)
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Disturbingly true. The only exception I can think of round my way is that they used to sell 1.25L bottles of Jolt with different labelling for "Trucker's Pack", "Student's Pack", etc..
Various good-for-the-brain vitamins and supplements by the same companies who make muscle-building compounds like Musashi used to sell them. For about six months before they mysteriously vanished from the catalogues and shelves.
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... seem to be missing the parts where it says that the (yes, electrical) stimulation is stimulating neurotransmitters; and that any actual pain-effect is being countered by anaesthesia.
And I'm amazed that, all these comments in, we get "I for one welcome our super-intelligent rat overlords" but haven't yet got a "where do I sign up?". Man, when we were back in undergrad before USB was invented(*), we all wanted RS232 sockets near the bases of our skulls.
Oh, I fully agree. I get all excited too, until I realize that there's no way in bloody hell I will be able to afford these things like the accelerated learning zappage stuff.
This is great news! (Score:1)
Sounds familiar (Score:1)
Remember how well t
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Yay for taking a fictional story and assuming all real research will have the same result.
You don't need electrodes; drugs will do (Score:3)
(stolen from someone who stole it from someone on Usenet)
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a) See post above, "Those who haven't read TFA...". It already IS drugs.
b) Caffeine doesn't work forever. It works partially by blocking adenosine receptors (which stops you getting sleepy-bye-bye). The brain responds by growing more adenosine receptors and the sleepy creeps in anyway.
c) Increasing doses of caffeine does more damage to more bits of you anyway.
I say this with approximately 433mg of caffeine in my bloodstream right this minute (according to the caffeine-tracking spreadsheet I maintain). So: a
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Piracetam is another option... or any of the long list of nootropics.
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Yeah; but I try pricing it every few years. Especially since I got a mortgage, the price has stayed out of reach.
As well as its general ongoing expense, Piracetam requires an "attack dose", a large "kickstarter". I estimated, last time I looked at this, the first couple of weeks' supply would be about $400.
Like I said: mortgage. I'm still trying to save up for this year's FSF, Humanity+, Linux Foundation memberships.
On the other hand, I did read somewhere that a large (but keep it non-fatal) amount of caffe
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Interesting... I have got 100 tablets of 800mg each for about 10 Euro... ( docsimon.com / article /piracetam-al-tbl-100x-800mg ). That doesn't seem expensive to me.
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Of course, the other problem is that I'm in Australia. The pharmacies here just don't stock it. Bad enough I'd have to import it, but a few years ago Piracetam was put on our Prescribed list.
I'd have to convince a doctor to put me on a prescription for it. Seeing as I'm already diabetic and have slightly high blood pressure, it's not looking great.
Human overclocking? (Score:2)
Convoluted learning mechanism theory (Score:4)
The study is intriguing and the experiment is commendable.
The theory is a bit odd. At the end they detail a theory that presupposes that there is some network in the brain that represents the activity being learned and that it is whittled down from a larger initial chunk of neurons.
A simpler mechanism would be that for Hebbian learning to be able to do its magic you need some random neurons firing. Some of the randomly fired neurons will fire at the times corresponding to when they would fire as part of the network (engram) to be formed and so through Hebbian learning they will soon fire together on purpose and not just by chance.
Overstimulating the brain increases the number of neurons firing at any given moment and thus increases the number of neurons available to learn the task at hand.
Hrmm (Score:2)
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I was looking for that. I thought it sounded familiar.
Wasn't there another one with magnetic fields as well?
So I guess... (Score:3)
The rat... (Score:1)
And here's what happens when you do that (Score:4, Insightful)
If you do that, if you change the state of the brain for advanced learning, the human brain -- indeed probably most animal brains -- adapt in one very predictable manner. They become excellent learners in the new state, and stop learning entirely in the old state.
Which means you'll learn great in the classroom, and you'll learn absolutely nothing from normal experiences -- when you're off the juice.
Which is crazy dangerous, since it'll basically erase the expertise part of experience.
Again, and as usual, this is a great idea for immediate safety-related stuff. Teach CPR this way, train soldiers this way. But normal learning is a different animal. Slower learning isn't usually a lack of learning skill -- it's often a stubborness to stick with existing knowledge, and that is most often a very good thing. You don't want to lose that in general.
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They become excellent learners in the new state, and stop learning entirely in the old state.
Which means you'll learn great in the classroom, and you'll learn absolutely nothing from normal experiences -- when you're off the juice.
Sounds like coffee to me. I'm not joking.
I believe the only reason coffee isn't outlawed is because it allows you to borrow energy from your personal life and input it into your work life.
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except it doesn't. In fact, you're brain adjusts and you return to normal state.
So if you drink a cup a day, after 2 weeks, you are getting NOTHING from the caffeine.
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Except n this case, that's not happening.
"You don't want to lose that in general."
why?
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innovation, creativity, safety, loyalty, consistency; they all come from stubborness -- doing the opposite of what you're told. That's one.
But I've got better. Grab a grade-four text book. Look through it and tell me how much of it is just incorrect. You'll find that 90% of it is just plain wrong. And the only reason you won't find the other 10% is because you're not experienced enough to know that it's wrong too. The vast majority of what you're taught in school is just dead wrong. And I don't mean
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You really need to re-read what I said. I said nothing about experiences between classroom and normal. I spoke of artificially stimulated -- as is the context of the article, which I put into the classroom -- and normal as in not stimulated.
But, I like your point. Yes, many people can't learn in the classroom, but can in actual experience, and others -- the vast majority -- can't learn without benig taught. But that's a skill thing, in each direction, not a restriction effect -- which is plainly obvious
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In fact, when we are talking about a neural network of human-brain size, there are no simple learning processes, its always a battle between at least millions of neurons(of total 100 billion) on whom on them need to adjust their weights.
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You need me to cite someone else saying that the brain operates within bounded states? I cite you. I cite the last time you had a conversation with a person who had an accent, and by the time the conversation was over, you had the same accent. I cite you. I cite the last time you played football in the park and played it well only to forget half of the rules when you got home. I cite you. I cite the last time you saw a girl/guy in an attractive atmosphere and were attracted only to forget that attract
We're all doomed (Score:1)
This coupled with smarter rats [slashdot.org] - they'll be unstoppable!!
re: "Temporary" brain changes lead to learning (Score:2)
I would imagine... as long as the brain you are replacing yours with comes from someone smarter than you, it should learn faster.
Another probable outcome not mentioned in the article as tested was the body that received the changed out brain probably lost all the advanced things learned previously.
Original Source from Neuron April 14th issue (Score:1)
took long enough! (Score:3)
Now I can finally read and understand all those "Learn programming in 24 hours" books I've purchased over the years...
LSD Research (Score:1)
Now this is what I''ve been complaining about guys! Research dollars going to cover ground that's already been mapped.
This has been discovered over and over. My personal favorite however is the independent research conducted by the common man, flipping ALL the switches in a few LSD sessions while incorporating study of ANY subject during the months of experimentation. Results are the same as the rat/electricity but with obvious benefits of not being shocked and having a whale of a good time.( having a good
Unlock your potential (Score:1)
Sure thing (Score:2)
"In an advance that could help the treatment of learning impairments, strokes, tinnitus and chronic pain [...]"
It *could* help those things, but more likely it will be used by college kids cramming the night before finals after fucking off all semester. At least, that's what I would do.
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Which is a good thing. IN the reported case, the mice retained the knowledge. SO in your example the only thing that would changes is that cramming would be retained for long term.
Which how much more you could learn in 4 years if you could know a semesters worth of subject in a week?
Chuck! (Score:1)
treatemnt? (Score:2)
How about help everyone? I would love to put on a hat that stimulate my brain so I could learn faster. Who wouldn't thins help?
Maybe we could do a year of college in 4 months.
Gattaca (Score:2)
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I've pondered this theme for some time - intelligence is like a threshold in chemistry - below the threshold you can't do X quality activity. In the workplace this defines the spread of jobs you can do, which correlates with how much money you can make.
So along comes ______ technique/substance to boost you over the threshold. Then you either have a cost problem to maintain that higher level, or an Algernon problem if you miscalibrate the quantities. More movies/TV shows seem to play out the Algernon Tragedy
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Those people's fears are totally justified. But how is that any different than higher education today?
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Wow Nike Spam On Slashdot (Score:1)
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Rat brains are similar to human brains, the human brain simply has a way bigger cerebrum [wikipedia.org]. The main structure of the brain was already there in the time of the dinosaurs, and what would become humans and rats were probably about the same creatures back then.
Chemically and electrically the human and the rat brain work almost the same (feromones are different of course)
IANANS, but I was good at biology back in highschool.
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1. Figure out a way to modify DNA to deliberately REDUCE the intelligence of future humans
2. Use electric stimulation just long enough to let them learn their robot-like tasks.
3. Turn off the juice before they figure out how to read or speak.
4. PROFIT!
As we know from Asian garment factories, people can be cheaper than robots. They last longer and require minimal maintenance -- so long as they are treated as a disposable commodity. When they break, throw them away. Until now, the ability to use humans as robots has been limited to the third world. Considering how easy it is to bribe Congress, the legalization of programmable slaves is only a few campaign contributions away. For a few more dollars, they'll subsidize the industry!
That's basically the plot to "Battlefield Earth".